Surely this is so: "The ants are a people not strong but they prepare their meat in the summer"; on this account they have their place among the "four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise," and we do well to consider their ways and learn the lesson which they teach us. Before we quite leave the ant-city, I should like to tell you that the eggs of ants grow while hatching, to accommodate themselves to the increasing size of the tiny creature within them. There are many interesting things to be observed about the eggs of insects; as to their colour, they are generally of that best adapted for concealment; as to the way in which they are hatched, I have heard that the mother insect--the Earwig was the one mentioned--sometimes sits upon her eggs, and that one of the spiders has been seen sitting upon the silken bag which contained its eggs, and carrying it away if disturbed. I ought to have told you that there are two great divisions of the insect family--those which suck liquid food through their proboscis or trunk, such as flies and butterflies, and those--such as the beetles, bees, and locusts--which bite and eat solid food with their jaws. Dearly as I should like to tell you about bees, both "solitary" and "social," "masons" and "carpenters," we must not make this chapter longer, so we will speak only of the Locusts. If I could let you have a peep into the box where I keep a specimen-locust, which came to me by post from his native country, you would notice his powerful jaws, which are so strong that they inflict a severe wound; but it is not on account of their bite that locusts have been used by God as His "exceeding great army" to punish those who hardened themselves against Him; but because wherever they alight in their countless myriads, they devour every green thing, turning a fruitful field into a barren desert in a few hours. [Illustration: THE LOCUST.] Did you ever _see_ as well as hear a grasshopper? The locust is an insect of the same kind, and I have heard that African locusts in the first stage of their life are as green as grasshoppers, but wingless--though they afterwards have very pretty wings. They are described as crowding together, "standing upon each other in heaps four or five deep, or gradually advancing over each other's backs, eating all before them." A flight of locusts is indeed a wonderful sight. An African traveller once saw advancing towards him a dark cloud; the seeming storm came nearer and nearer; ah! it was no snow-storm or hail-storm, but a living cloud of locusts. He thus describes it, as it came upon him and his companions: